Osprey39

Sorry, I haven't been back on the site in a bit so I just saw your answer. If you're just looking for a current fishing report, I would have said to talk to Mark or Cody at Big Toho Marina, but they aren't running it anymore and I'm not sure if the new owners are into fishing like they were. You could talk to the guys at Toho Marine in St. Cloud. A few of them are avid fishermen and might be willing to give you some information. Everyone else I know down there is too tight lipped lol.

I live up in Jax now myself, but I used to live down that way. Are you just looking for some intel on what's going on down there currently?

Hey there John. I used to live 15 minutes from Lake Tohopekaliga and my PB is from Tiger Lake on the Kissimmee Chain, caught in a tournament no less so ya know it was on artificials lol. In my humble opinion, February is the best month to go if you want a good shot at catching a 8+ pound fish. You can catch fish of that class any time of year, but if you go to this webpage and look at the bags, you'll see they peak in February: https://xbs.floridatournamentreport.com/lake-kissimmee-division/kissimmee-schedule-and-results/ If you're looking for a guide, I would recommend Chuck Pippin. I don't know Chuck personally, but I know his reputation and it's very good. I know he will do an all artificial trip if you want to. Here's his web page: https://www.chucksguideservice.com/guides.html One thing I'll warn you about if you try to fish Florida lakes on your own with no prior experience, you can spend days trying to figure it out because like Roadwarrior said, it all looks good. I would strongly recommend getting a guide so you make the most of your trip.

I believe they do still have those tournaments. I remember seeing the sign about them when I went there to eat one time. I tried fishing docks in there today, because I didn't really see much else to try. I should just go and leave all the rods in the box until I can find some fish on the graph, but I run out of patience and have to throw something

Went to Doctors Lake today and didn't catch anything lol. That place is weird. It's like 1' or less of water 100 yards from all of the shoreline. I didn't see any grass or anything in it either. Not really sure what to make of that place yet.

Hey @N Florida Mike, thanks for the reply! It hasn't been lost on me that I don't see many other people fishing on Black Creek lol. I haven't seen a whole lot of fish on the graph either and I've spent a good bit of time idling down that creek staring at my side scan. I live in Middleburg though and my main goal was to try to find some spots close by that I could come home, throw the boat in the water and hit for a couple hours after work. I also want to figure out how to catch fish on these creeks and rivers because they are unlike the grass filled lakes of the Kissimmee Chain that I am used to. That's why I have avoided Doctors Lake up til now, because I didn't want to give up and just go fish on a lake. Doctors Lake was on my list for this weekend though because I pretty much fished all the way to the end of the Creek on my last trip. I'll take your advice and try some of those baits. That's one thing I haven't done much is change what I'm throwing. When fishing is tough, I tend to throw speed worms exclusively because it seems I can always catch fish on them. New water, new tactics though I guess Thanks again for your answers!

Hey all, I just moved up to Jacksonville at the end of March. I'm trying to figure out the Black Creek area as I live pretty close to it. Just got out for the second time this past weekend and caught a few, but all dinks. Looking for someone that might be willing to share some insight on fishing around here to help accelerate my learning curve. Reply or shoot me a PM if you are willing to share some knowledge with a new guy to the area.

Bingo. These were kids but let's say they were adults. Maybe that day is the only day they can get a kitchen pass from the wife to go fishing. You think they're going to care that a pro fished the spot earlier and might come back? Nope. I wonder what some of these guys would do if they were fishing Okeechobee. If you've never fished there, the lake is massive but most people all fish in the same handful of areas so on a tournament day it's not uncommon to see 40+ boats in about 1 acre of water. I fish plenty of tournaments but I don't idolize pro anglers nor do I think they can do no wrong and that they own the lake when they are in town. I am not saying you do, but some folks do think like that. I can see the issue from both sides and the way I see it is if you moved, you moved. You can't be upset if someone is fishing there when you decide to return.

I think you overestimate how many people care about professional bass fishing and are cognizant of what is going on with it. I know lots of people that fish for bass, even fish local tournaments but don't pay any attention to 'the pros'. I'm not one of them, I absolutely love MLF but a lot of folks don't give a d**n and that's just among bass fishermen. If you look at the population of the country as a whole, very few people follow professional bass fishing.

I live up by Toho so I'm not totally keyed in to what's going on down at Okeechobee. That said, I have a hard time believing they are going to draw the lake down any further and I've heard nothing about that. As I understand it, it's already much lower than normal right now. As far as the fishing goes, my buddy fished an ABA down there about 3 weeks ago and there were some really good bags brought to the scales. I don't think the fishing is suffering much. Now in my slightly biased opinion Lake Toho and the Kissimmee Chain in general don't have to take a back seat to Okeechobee ever. Forgive me for the self-promotion here but if you look at this thread: I caught those on Kissimmee. I just fished a team tournament with the buddy I mentioned above on Kissimmee yesterday and when we left, 40.4 lbs was winning it. We had to tuck our tails and head home with our little 20 lb bag lol. My point here is that I definitely wouldn't look at fishing Toho and the Kissimmee Chain as settling. It's a better fishery (again, in my slightly biased opinion.)

Find the areas in the lake with hard, sandy bottom that are around 4' or shallower. Those are the areas fish will likely spawn in. Work your way out from there to cover on the deeper breaklines. That's where you'll find your pre-spawn fish. Just remember, if the bottom in the shallow water isn't conducive to spawning, you're not likely to find pre-spawn fish there. They follow contours and breaklines like underwater highways but they will generally go to the same spots to spawn year after year.

I don't know for sure where to find one but if I wanted one and it were me, I'd contact Eagle Claw (company that makes them) and ask them if they have them available.

Most of the time there's no reason to be worried about them. When I was a teenager, I was duck hunting with a friend of my dad's and we had a bird go down behind our blind. He went wading out to get it and all of a sudden I heard a huge splash from his direction. I yelled over at him, "Did you fall down?" He yelled back, "Nah, I just stepped on about an 8 foot gator over here." The gator just took off as they don't like being around humans. Now if it's their mating season, all bets are off. They are very aggressive during that time of the year.

I was specifically talking about channels which are by and large meant for high speed traffic. I've been on lakes in New Mexico where going outside the channel was asking for some serious lower unit damage. Even here in Florida, you might end up running up on a sand bar or something. I also said I didn't like it when powerboats loiter in the middle of the channel so I wasn't discriminating against paddlers when I said that. It's just not a great place to fish or otherwise mill around in.

d**n, would have liked to gone to one.

I don't browse here as much as I used to in the past but I remember there used to be annual road trips every year. Haven't seen any mention of them in awhile, are they still being done?

I have no problem with kayakers as long as they aren't paddling around in the middle of a channel where they know powerboats are going to want to run. For that matter, I don't like it when powerboats mill around in the middle of said channels either. It's kind of like playing hockey on a highway, just not a very good idea. That said, I don't really get the whole kayak fishing thing. It seems like a de-evolution in fishing methods to me but hey, whatever blows your dress up I guess

I wanted to thank everyone for the congratulations and kind words. I really appreciate it so thanks!!

So yesterday I fished the 2nd ABA event here in Central FL on the Kissimmee Chain as a co-angler and just had an amazing day. I was getting tons of bites and catching a lot of them but they were all little hyper-aggressive pre-spawn males and all right around a pound. Then my boater moved the boat out into just a little bit deeper water and the big girl on the left came out to play. At 10.98 pounds, it eclipsed my old personal best by almost 2 full pounds. After that, I was feeling pretty good that at the very least I would get big bass on the co-angler side and a top 5 finish. Then a couple hours and several of those little bites later, I hooked up with the fish on the right. That one was over 6 pounds and I knew then I probably had a big enough bag that I was going to win everything and I did! First tournament win, it was/is an amazing feeling. A day later and I'm still all giddy about it! Anyway, just wanted to share and brag a bit. Thanks for indulging me

I used to have a Tracker PT-190 and I re-carpeted the front deck on it. The front deck on that boat had a piece of 3/4" plywood on it which I replaced when I was doing the re-carpet job. I'm not sure if your boat would have that or not but if it does, it makes it really easy as you can just remove that piece and put the carpet on outside of the boat. To answer your other questions: 1. If you mean what's underneath it, I'm not sure. I want to say what I bought had a rubber backing but I don't remember. 2. Depends on how long you want it to last. Heavier carpet will hold up longer. 3. Measure everything in the boat and estimate. Allow for some waste which is unavoidable. 4. Any kind of spray adhesive. It doesn't cost too much (it will probably be the least of your expenses for the project.) 5. I'd just replace with whatever was there to begin with.

The Garmin can definitely be trolling motor mounted. I had one on my old boat and it came with a TM mount in the box but I transom mounted mine. I still have the TM mount in the garage as a matter of fact.

Thanks for the info SC53. My heart is telling me to buy the Live but my head is telling me to get last year's Ti which would still be a big upgrade from my Gen 2 and buy the Live later when I have more money to spend on it haha.

I used to have one and they are really good value even at the normal price. I actually preferred it to the Lowrance units I have now.

I have a couple questions. BPS is having their big spring sale next week and I'm thinking about getting a new unit for the bow of my Ranger because they are offering triple club points and free installation on sonars. I am currently running an aging HDS Gen 2 up front. I'm trying to decide between the new HDS Live ($1799), this year's Elite Ti2 ($1069) or last year's Elite Ti2 ($599). To be honest, the HDS Live is a good bit out of my budget and even if I were to get it, I couldn't afford the LiveSight upgrade any time soon. That said, I don't want to have buyer's remorse because I bought the cheaper unit and missed out on a bunch of other features. So my first question is this: Other than LiveSight, is the HDS Live worth the extra money? What else does it bring to the table over the Elite Ti2? And I guess question 1B would be: Is there a dramatic difference between last year's Elite Ti and this year's? The $599 price tag is attractive but again, saving $400 but regretting I did not purchase the other unit is something I would like to avoid. My other question is this: I have a Minn Kota Ultrex (36V) and I am currently using the built in universal transducer on it with the Gen 2. Is there a transducer that I can mount on that trolling motor that will give me side imaging and down imaging? The guy at BPS said only a DI transducer will fit but I could swear I've seen pros on MLF running SI on the front. I know my neighbor has it on his Humminbird. Thanks in advance for any help!

I'd tend to agree with his thinking. Only real reason to have SS prop is for increased performance and it's not like a 40 horse is going to scream regardless of how you prop it. Save the money for tackle.